by Stead Jones
I wanted to refuse. I would sooner have jumped in the harbour than gone in there in front of that crowd.
‘All you have to do is ask to see Mr Pritchard. Tell him Ashton’s wanted outside, urgent.’ He measured me with a look. ‘All right, then, Lew?’
I couldn’t refuse. ‘All right,’ I said, and tried to stop the trembling in my knees.
Then Dewi gripped my arm. ‘I’ll come with you,’ he said. ‘Just up our street, this is.’
I was too grateful even to thank him. We hurried across the yard to the open back door of the Harp. The narrow passageway was lined with men, each one a glass in his hand. They weren’t looking at us, however: Martha had everyone’s attention. They didn’t notice us until we had reached the bar. Then the comments began. ‘By God, this is a night – look what’s blown in now… Old Joe will go out of his mind…. Hey, boys bach, what’ll it be, then?’ My face burned.
We pushed through to the door of the saloon, where Martha was still telling everyone she was going to sing. There was a crowd around the door. Dewi looked at me, and I looked at Dewi. I was all for giving it up as a bad job, but Dewi had other ideas.
‘Paging Mr Vaughan!’ he roared, in exactly the way they did at the pictures, American accent and all.
Everybody shut up as soon as he’d said it. A pin dropping in that place would have been thunder. Then the crowd around the door parted, and Joe Pritchard came through, wide and square and shirtsleeved, fingering his waxed moustache.
‘Great God!’ he cried when he saw us. ‘What else is going to happen tonight?’ He fixed his glare upon us. ‘What are you young buggers doing in my pub, then?’
I knew it was my turn to speak. ‘We’ve come for Mr Ashton Vaughan,’ I said in my best County School voice. ‘He’s wanted…’
Joe Pritchard raised his great arms in the air. ‘Get off these premises!’ he roared. ‘Clear out! By God, if the police should drop in this minute…’
‘It’s Ashton’s little friends,’ someone sneered.
‘So they are, now…’
‘I don’t give a bugger who they are,’ cried Joe. ‘Get out of my pub! Now!’
He raised his arms again to shoo us out. I began to back away, but Dewi stood firm. ‘We’re going,’ he said, raising his voice because the row in the saloon had started again. ‘Going now, Mr Pritchard – but tell Ashton Vaughan he’s wanted outside urgent – will you?’
Joe Pritchard pulled hard at his nose. ‘Tell him? Oh, hell, aye – I’ll announce it ever so polite. But he won’t be able to bloody well walk out, lad. Understand?’ He swished his cloth at us. ‘Now – out!’
‘Tell him, though – will you, Mr Pritchard?’
‘Out!’ Joe roared. ‘Out this minute!’ He came for us. ‘Out – or you’ll have my boot up your backside!’
That was enough, even for Dewi. We charged through the grinning men out to the yard.
‘No good?’ Gladstone asked. Dewi shook his head. ‘Don’t go in, though. Joe Pritchard’s ready to kill.’
We crouched near Ashton’s luggage and felt depressed. It was such an anticlimax, somehow. ‘Won’t have to wait till closing time, will we?’ Maxie asked. We told him to shut up, and sat there listening to Martha singing ‘Aberystwyth’. She sang it well, too – drunk or sober, Martha had a voice smooth as syrup – but I couldn’t help feeling sorry for Gladstone having to listen to it.
Then, suddenly, she broke off in mid-note and started to scream abuse at someone. Not long after there was a commotion at the back door, and two men appeared, humping Ashton between them. They were obviously under orders, because they ran quickly back into the pub and slammed the door shut, leaving him slumped on the doorstep. He wasn’t out for the count, though, but one look told us he’d never manage the walk to the Point.
Someone in the pub was calling Martha a common woman, but we were too deep in our own troubles to pay much attention. How did we move Ashton off that step, and having done that where did we move him to? His room, or the Point?
‘The Point,’ Gladstone said firmly.
‘Taxi, then?’ Dewi asked.
Gladstone shook his head. ‘We’re not going through his pockets, either. Too much of that done to drunken men.’ He was searching the yard as he spoke, not bothering at all about the row going on in the pub.
‘Going to be a big job carrying him,’ Maxie said. ‘That case and all…’
‘Over there,’ Gladstone broke in, pointing. ‘That wheelbarrow. They won’t notice if we take it…’
Dewi brought the barrow over. It was the kind used for shifting beer casks, without any sides to it, but with a big iron plate sticking up at the front. ‘Not a dignified carriage,’ Gladstone remarked. It was heavy, too – heavier still once we had propped Ashton Vaughan on it. We made him sit up, his back against the iron plate, and we put his suitcase on his lap to keep him down. ‘The point of balance,’ Gladstone kept saying, but we can’t have found it before we were clear of the yard because Ashton fell off twice.
No one noticed us – no one said anything, anyway – and once on the road the going was easier. ‘Two of you on either side to see he doesn’t come off,’ Gladstone ordered. ‘We’ll be there in no time.’
It was downhill all the way to the Square. Ashton only fell off once – at the feet of Llywelyn Philips who had been a missionary in Africa. ‘What’s the matter with that man?’ he cried, nearly climbing out of his celluloid collar. ‘Leprosy,’ Dewi replied, as we propped Ashton back again. Now and then, before we reached the station corner, I looked back, and Llywelyn Philips was still standing in the middle of the road watching us.
When we stopped for a breather by the station, I was all for cutting down one of the back streets to the harbour, but Gladstone insisted that it was shorter through the town, and he didn’t care who saw us. ‘We’ll have his coat over his face, though, for decency’s sake,’ he said, and we covered Ashton Vaughan’s sagging head with his old mac.
Station Road was crowded, as I knew it would be. It looked as if all Porthmawr was out to take the evening air, or watch the antics of the visitors, or see us pass through. Then I heard the first roar of laughter which always preceded the coming of the Rev A. H. Jones, and there he was, arm in arm with his wife, on our side of the road too. He was pointing things out to his wife, and laughing because it was such a funny world – and we might have passed him unnoticed had not the wheelbarrow hit a stone and tipped Ashton off again.
‘My goodness!’ Mrs Jones screeched. ‘It’s a man!’
‘Steady! Steady! Steady!’ the Rev A. H. Jones cried, not to us but to his wife. Then he flung his arms around her and stood on tiptoe looking down at the inert figure on the pavement. ‘Good gracious,’ he said, ‘is he dead? Wherever are you boys taking him?’
‘To the bonfire,’ Dewi said, as we hoisted Ashton back on the barrow.
The Rev A. H. Jones let go of his wife, fixed his glasses on his nose, and ventured closer. He was over his shock now, and curious as a puppy.
‘Gladstone Williams!’ he cried. ‘Again! What are you up to, boy?’
‘Not up to anything,’ Gladstone replied as he draped the mac over Ashton’s head. ‘It’s poor Mr Vaughan. He was on his way home, poor man, and was taken ill. We’re putting Christian principles into practice, you might say.’
‘He’s drunk!’ the Minister cried out. All the people watching must have heard him quite clearly.
Gladstone gripped the handles firmly. ‘Drunk or sober, still in need of Christian charity,’ he said. ‘Would you like to help, then?’
The Minister leapt back. ‘Certainly not!’ he gasped. He reached for his wife’s hand. ‘Myfanwy,’ he said, ‘Myfanwy…’
‘Whatever is Porthmawr coming to?’ she said. ‘Is that Ashton Vaughan?’
‘Steady! Steady!’ said the Rev A. H. Jones.
‘And is that Gladstone Williams?’
A quick nod.
‘Goodness,’ she said, ‘oh, goodness… hold me,
A. H.’
‘Plenty of room on the barrow,’ Gladstone said as we set off once again towards the Square.
It was all very embarrassing, I thought, especially as Ashton had come to and was now singing under the mac. But I stuck close to Gladstone and tried not to look at anybody. Perhaps that was why I never saw Super Edwards until he was upon us, blocking our way, his hand up, as if we were a bus or something. ‘Stop!’ he cried. We were in the middle of the Square. ‘Stop where you are!’ Constable Matthews was at his side in an instant. We could tell what Ashton was singing now. It was ‘Rock of Ages’.
‘It’s a drunk,’ the constable said.
‘Take the mac off him,’ the Super ordered. The constable did so. ‘By God,’ said the Super, ‘it’s Ashton Vaughan!’
‘He’s all right,’ Gladstone said.
‘I can see that,’ said the Super. ‘Where d’you think you’re taking him, then?’
‘To his brother’s,’ Gladstone said.
‘Good God!’ The Super looked thunderstruck. He knelt by Ashton’s side and sniffed.
‘It’s all arranged.’
The Super got to his feet again. ‘Does Marius know? By God, won’t he be glad to see him!’
We didn’t bother to comment. Gladstone gripped the handles firmly. We took our places ready to move off.
‘Shall I make a charge, sir?’ Constable Matthews asked, stepping in front of us.
The Super shook his head. ‘No. No charge. You sure you’re taking him to the Point?’
‘Quite sure,’ Gladstone said.
‘Where did you get the barrow, then?’ the constable asked.
‘On loan,’ Gladstone said wearily. ‘From the Harp.’
‘And Marius knows he’s coming?’ the Super persisted.
‘All arranged,’ Gladstone said. ‘The breach is healed. All’s well with the Vaughans.’
‘Good God,’ the Super said, ‘when is the day of judgement then?’
‘Can we go?’
‘Aye. Get him out of here fast as you can. Smells worse than a public bar. Get going…’ The Super was grinning all over his face. ‘That man had better be very careful,’ Gladstone said as we carried on across the Square. ‘He’s likely to find himself on the mat before the Chief Constable.’
Once clear of the town and on the road to the Point the excitement died in us, and tiredness even overtook Gladstone. The stops became more frequent, the longest of all by Marius Vaughan’s gate. We all had a pull on a fag there and listened to Ashton’s muffled snores rise on the still, evening air.
Then Marius Vaughan’s car came from the direction of the house. We opened the gate for him and stood there waiting. The car came to a halt. Marius wound down the window. He didn’t really look at us at all – only at the wheelbarrow.
‘What’s that?’ he asked, pointing.
‘Your brother come home,’ Gladstone replied grandly. We all felt rather proud at that moment. We had accomplished something. But Marius Vaughan, where I was concerned, soon altered that.
‘Good God,’ he said, more like a military Englishman than ever, ‘is that the only way you could bring him? Like a pig from the market?’
We were tired and hot, and this wasn’t the kind of talk we wanted to hear. Dewi at my side cleared his throat, all set for argument, but Gladstone took no offence.
‘Well – you know how it is, Mr Vaughan. Told you he needs looking after…’
‘You wheeled him across the town in that?’ Marius went on. ‘Had he no money for a taxi?’
‘Never asked him,’ Dewi said sharply.
‘Then you should have done. Making a bloody carnival of it! I suppose he does know where he is?’
‘He told us he’d come,’ Gladstone replied, still very gently. ‘He was all packed and everything, but he got in with a crowd at the Harp…’
‘Well, good God,’ Marius kept on saying. ‘On a bloody wheelbarrow! Good God!’ Then he tossed two half-crowns through the window. They fell on the dusty road with a chink that was somehow insulting. ‘The taxi would have cost you that,’ he said. ‘You may as well have it…’
Gladstone picked up the money. ‘You don’t have to do that, Mr Vaughan.’
‘Oh yes, he does,’ Dewi said grimly.
‘Didn’t do it for the money…’
‘Don’t be silly, Gladstone. Don’t give it him back.’
‘Take it!’ Marius snapped as he revved up the car. ‘Carry on to the house. Hand him over to the housekeeper. She’s got a room ready for him…’
The car began to move off, Marius still looking intently at the bundle on the barrow. ‘Please, Mr Vaughan,’ Gladstone said. ‘It’s all right. We don’t want this…’ But the car gathered speed and left us standing in a cloud of fine dust.
Gladstone turned to us, holding the two coins as if they were dirty. ‘He needn’t have done that,’ he said. ‘We didn’t do it for money…’
‘You mean we didn’t do it for five bloody shillings,’ Dewi broke in angrily. ‘He could have said thank you very much as well, the bastard! Five bloody shillings!’ He looked at Ashton on the barrow. ‘All the trouble we’ve had with that bugger. We should have dumped him in the bloody harbour…’
Tempers broke suddenly. Dewi and Gladstone had a real set to. Gladstone threw the money on the ground. Dewi picked it up. Gladstone knocked it out of his hands, and Maxie scrambled after it, crying out that one half-crown was lost…. It was a poor end to the day.
Gladstone and I carried on to the house, leaving the other two scrabbling on hands and knees in the dust. Neither of us spoke. There was only the occasional squeak from the barrow and Ashton’s irregular snoring to break a silence that was as heavy as doom.
XIV
During the week that followed I saw nothing of Gladstone. It was a very wet week, unfit for any visits to the beach, but that wasn’t the only reason. The truth was that I’d had enough of the Vaughans – more than enough; the holidays had been given over to them, had gone quickly in their shadow, and I knew that Gladstone, were I to go down Lower Hill to his house, would still want to talk about them. So, apart from odd afternoons with Rowland Williams in his workshop, I stayed in and read Zane Grey and Edgar Wallace and talked to Meira and played draughts with Owen. I was like Dewi – I’d had a bellyful of the Vaughans.
We had spent the five shillings Marius had thrown at us on fish, chips and peas – a big feed in the cafe behind Johnson’s Chips. Gladstone had talked of the Vaughans non-stop while Dewi and Maxie and I had pulled sly faces at one another. Gladstone was jubilant. ‘I never thought Ashton would agree. Never. But we managed it, didn’t we? We brought them together again. We succeeded where others have failed – old Super Edwards can put that in his pipe and smoke it.’ I wanted to say that Ashton hadn’t really gone of his own free will, had in fact been carted there dead drunk. And afterwards Dewi had called our journey across town a bloody farce. But we said nothing. If Gladstone wanted to see it as a triumphal procession, then fair enough. We let him talk. ‘Two scarred men, Lew, all their passions dying now, and both with the same sickness. But they’re together now, as they should be….’ He carried on like that all the way home, and that’s how I left him – eyes shining, face drawn and pale with excitement. I decided there and then that I would have a rest. I would wait until Gladstone had got over the Vaughans.
A wet week, and the visitors dwindling. Give it a few more days, Owen said, and there would be only the seagulls after a boat, and he would be back on the dole.
‘Nice when they’re gone, though,’ Meira said. ‘We can have the place to ourselves…’
‘Lovely, that is,’ Owen said.
‘Poor things – going back to them big, dirty towns…’
Owen made a move on the draughtsboard. ‘Very nice for us living in lovely old Porthmawr with no work, too. The gentlemen of Porthmawr – and all the work they do is sign on the dotted line. Know who said that, Lew?’
I shook my head.
�
�The Rev A. H. Jones, that’s who. From the pulpit. It was a bit of fair social comment, coming from a man who’s working the ass-end off his breeches…’
‘Owen!’ Meira said, very sharp.
‘Only quoting, cariad,’ he went on. ‘Quoting my betters.’ He gave me a wink. ‘Not so long left of the holidays now, Lew?’
‘Results on Wednesday,’ I said. I had tried my Senior, and everybody knew how important that was – that and the Central Welsh Board.
‘Think you’ve passed, Lew?’
‘Don’t know,’ I said.
‘Pass or fail – it’s back to school for you,’ Meira put in. ‘Been paying in that club of Mrs Davies – enough for a new rig-out for you, boy.’
Owen and Meira, I decided, were the only two people I felt really secure with. I didn’t belong to them, of course, but most of the time their kindness made me forget that. I didn’t want to go back to school at all, but I would do if that was what they wanted. And that night I prayed that I had passed the Senior because I knew it would please them. And on Wednesday the news was good.
‘Matriculated as well!’ Owen cried. ‘Meira, he’s got the bloody matric!’
‘Don’t swear,’ Meira said through her tears. ‘Oh – pity his mam…’
‘Been living with a bloody genius,’ Owen went on. ‘By God – it’ll be college and all sorts for you now, boy.’
Straight off this niggling contempt I had for them came back. I was ashamed of it, had tried all I knew to scrub it out, but it was there – especially when they were like this – all emotion and kindness and love.
‘Have him a teacher, shall we, Meira?’ All Porthmawr hated the teaching profession, but they thought of nothing else for their sons and daughters. ‘Safe job – all them holidays…’
I turned away in disgust. A foreign correspondent was what I wanted to be – a foreign correspondent who was also a poet.
‘Teacher, Lew?’
