Make Room for the Jester

by Stead Jones

  ‘I’m Lew,’ I said.

  He looked at me and blinked rapidly. ‘So y’are. By God, so y’are.’ He had a spell of soundless laughing, then got to his feet and did a jig in the restricted space between his bench and the pile of timber on which he had been sitting. He picked up a mallet and began to beat time to the tune he hummed. ‘That’s what’s wrong with us, Lew – we’ve no dance music.’ He nearly fell over as he tried to turn around. ‘Today, no work, boy. Know that? It’s not November the eleventh, is it? They’re not out at the war memorials, are they? I’m not drowning the Somme… but I’ll not touch tool or wood just the same. Today shall be for rational debate, nothing more.’ He saw himself mirrored in the window and came to a stop. The smile left his face. Then he began to swear. ‘Rowland Williams,’ he cried, ‘you…’ and it was all the swearing I knew and many, many more I’d never heard but knew to be swearing by their hardness and viciousness and the spittle forming on his lower lip. God was there and the body, and private parts and the faeces, and sex… obscenity on obscenity, until I thought the timbers of the old workshop oozed filth, and I jumped up and made for the door, afraid.

  ‘Stop, Lew!’ he cried. ‘Oh, stop, stop…’

  ‘Going to see Gladstone, Mr Williams.’

  ‘But stop! Don’t go! Stay, Lew – stay for me to tell you I’m sorry.’ He came up to me and placed his rough, horny hands around my ears and rocked me. ‘You never heard,’ I could hear him saying, ‘what can I say to you? Never heard me, did you, Lew? I’m sorry, boy – sorry. Oh, God, what can I do?’ Then he brought his face close to mine and kissed me on the forehead. I flung myself away from him, so violently that I banged my head against the door. I was dazed for a moment and went down to my knees. I saw Rowland back away from me. ‘Oh, Jesus Christ,’ he was saying, ‘oh, Jesus Christ.’ He choked on the words.

  I stood up and tried to speak, but my mouth was dry and no words would come out. I wanted to tell him it was all right, that I understood, that I knew he hadn’t meant anything wrong, that he was sorry about the swearing… but I couldn’t say it. He stood there by the bench, his shoulders shaking, and I couldn’t say anything.

  Then he seemed to grip himself, to mould himself right again. ‘Lew,’ he said softly, in his old Sunday-school voice, ‘the moral seems to be, don’t get drunk, except on Armistice Day.’

  ‘That’s right, Mr Williams,’ I said, laughing too loud.

  He made his face smile. ‘Rowland Williams the wit,’ he said. ‘Old snake-tongued Williams.’ He raised the bottle and drank. ‘Off to see Gladstone, you said?’

  ‘Think I’ll be going, then.’

  ‘Aye – I’m sorry, Lew.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ I said, too warmly, ‘it’s all right.’

  ‘Aye – well. Going to see Gladstone, then?’

  I opened the door, tried to be slow about it in case he thought I was running away. ‘Be going now,’ I said.

  ‘Come and tell me what he says, though – everything?’ he pleaded.

  ‘All right,’ I said, and closed the door behind me before he could start apologising again. It was raining, and I was glad of the freshness of it on my face.

  ‘This morning,’ said Gladstone, ‘I had Super Edwards for an hour. Said join the Army, boy. A fine life is the Army.’

  The four of us had the fire stoked up with driftwood, and we had chips out of paper. Upstairs, the last scream of the evening had been drowned by sleep. Martha, of course, was out.

  ‘Why don’t you join the Army, lad?’ Gladstone went on, imitating the Super’s voice. ‘Why, I said, is there going to be a war, Super? Never again, he says – read the papers. Never again. You could join as a boy, he says. It’s a good life. Plenty of good discipline. He kept on talking about discipline all the time. Discipline and fresh air. Besides, he says, you want to get away from here. Looking after children isn’t for a boy of your age. Not manly…’ Gladstone grinned as he lit a Woodbine. ‘Martha was here. Ever since she saw my picture in the paper she’s been treating me like a film star – until the Super came, that is. Then all she said was that’s right, Super – you tell him – lowering the family name like that. The family name, think of that! And all he kept saying was discipline is a necessary thing.’

  ‘My Uncle Ted joined the Army,’ Dewi said. ‘Always talking about spit and bloody polish, he was.’

  ‘I told him I wasn’t in agreement with the war machine,’ Gladstone went on. ‘Told him I was basically a pacifist.’ He rubbed his long, thin nose thoughtfully. ‘He seemed to go blue when I said that. Then he said he could charge me – disturbing the peace, inciting a mob to violence, interrupting an inquest on dead men… I ought to be ashamed of myself. Had I been carried away, or what? Well, I said, the coroner asked if there was anyone who could throw light on the case, so I got up. He meant the police, the Super said…. But you never mentioned Jupiter, I said…. The Super lost his temper then. Jupiter’s been dead and buried these sixteen years, he said. Life isn’t a fairy tale – that’s what you’re making of it. A fairy tale… They’d been to France, I said, they’d seen all that dying, but it was the boy’s death that broke them…. They were rough men, he said. And we had a really interesting argument, except that Martha kept interrupting. You can’t just say he shot his brother dead, I told him. What do you know about it? he says. What do you know about the law?’ Gladstone rolled his chip paper into a ball and threw it in the fire. ‘It isn’t a question of law, I said. It’s just that you ought to account for things. The discussion went to pieces after that. He said join the Army, make a man of you… I said I didn’t think the uniform matched my eyes… stuff like that. Very common it was. Write to Wrexham, he said. Gave me the address, too.’

  I was horrified. ‘Not going to, are you?’

  ‘Not until they come and fetch me…’

  ‘All over town they’re talking about you,’ I said.

  ‘Let them talk. The Vaughans are in the earth now. Someone’s got to speak for them.’ He touched the fading bruise on his face. ‘I should never have gone up there – only I thought I could help them. Saint Gladstone, that’s me. I should have known that nobody says thank you for help.’

  ‘What about her?’ I said.

  ‘Eirlys? I bet they’re dissecting her too, aren’t they? Poor woman. I expect she was too overcome with grief to show her face.’

  It was a rough night outside, the rain sweeping up Lower Hill, but we heard the knocking on the door through it all. Gladstone leapt up and went to the window and moved the blind aside. ‘Oh, my God,’ he said, ‘the Rev A. H. Jones and somebody else…’

  Maxie, Dewi and I were at the back door almost before he had finished speaking. Once in the backyard we could scale the wall and be clear and away.

  ‘Lew!’ Gladstone called. ‘Come back!’

  Maxie and Dewi charged past me, one of them knocking over the cinder bucket.

  ‘Can’t,’ I protested. ‘Not my place…’

  Gladstone gripped my arm. ‘Moral support,’ he begged. ‘There’s two of them.’

  I let him lead me back to the fireplace, then he went to open the front door. When I next looked up it was into the shining, smiling face of the Rev A. H. Jones. Behind him towered Mrs Meirion-Pughe, long beak twitching as she took in the room.

  The Minister bounced straight for me. ‘Edward – isn’t it?’ he cried.

  ‘Lew,’ I said.

  He slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand, but gently so that he wouldn’t upset the line of his wig. ‘Of course! Of course! Lew Davies.’

  ‘Morgan,’ I said.

  ‘Morgan,’ he agreed smoothly, ‘of course.’ He pinched my arm and said success, bravo, well done, matriculated, many a great man has come from a poor home, many many many a great man, onwards now Llywelyn…

  You old comic, I thought, why do you have to talk like that? He bounded past me to the fire and held his hands out to it. ‘Thank our dear Lord for a fire on such a dreadful night,’
he cried.

  Alderman Mrs Meirion-Pughe, with the gesture of the soldiers in the costume films, swung off her cloak and handed it to Gladstone. ‘Hang it up, boy,’ she ordered. ‘A terrible night to be out.’

  I looked at her thick, bright-green frock, the rows of yellow beads at her throat, the rubber overshoes on her feet, her noble chin with the immense beak above it… and I was saying comic, comic, comic to myself – and so was Gladstone, for his eyes were shining.

  ‘Do I smell cigarettes?’ Mrs Meirion-Pughe cried. ‘Not been smoking, have you?’

  ‘It’s the children,’ Gladstone said. ‘They always go through a packet before bed…’

  ‘Boy!’ she said in a voice of thunder.

  ‘Softly,’ said Gladstone. ‘Don’t want to wake them up, do we?’ He brought a chair for her to sit, but she waved him aside. ‘Going to be difficult, A. H.,’ she said. ‘Told you so, didn’t I?’

  ‘Ha, ha,’ said the Minister, still holding his hands to the fire.

  ‘A. H., a prayer if you please.’

  ‘Of course,’ said the Minister, ‘a lovely idea.’

  He turned to face us, smiling still, then he clasped his hands and closed his eyes. Mrs Meirion-Pughe immediately fell to her knees. Capel Mawr knew her as a great prayer at all the meetings. She always took a long time at it, and always became very emotional, and wept.

  ‘Our Father,’ said the Minister. I looked across at Gladstone. He winked at me then lowered his head. His eyes weren’t closed, though. He was watching the broad-shouldered, kneeling woman, and his face looked very sad. ‘Guide us in all our ways about the world,’ said the Minister. ‘Let us always do that which is right in your eyes….’ He didn’t say anything after that for what seemed a long time, then he said ‘Amen’.

  Mrs Meirion-Pughe came floundering up to her full height. Only Gladstone was taller than she, but since he was so thin she seemed to dwarf him, too. ‘Very short, A. H.,’ she said, ‘But down to business, eh?’

  ‘Ha, ha,’ said the Minister. ‘Yes, of course.’ And he sat on the chair nearest the fire. He held his hands out to the blaze again and said what a night, what a dreadful herald of a long winter.

  Mrs Meirion-Pughe sniffed very loudly, then fixed her eyes on me. ‘You,’ she said, ‘are in the way.’ She was well known for her directness. ‘Don’t live here, do you?’ Close to, like this, I could see the thin, black moustache running across her upper lip. It fascinated me.

  ‘Matriculated,’ the Minister said to the fire. ‘A brilliant brain.’

  ‘Why don’t you run along and see if your mother wants you?’ Mrs Meirion-Pughe suggested. ‘We have important things to discuss.’

  ‘Then Lew will have to stay,’ Gladstone broke in. ‘If anybody likes a discussion, it’s Lew. He’s got a flair for it – especially on theological themes.’

  ‘Cut along, boy,’ Mrs Meirion-Pughe commanded.

  ‘You should hear him on the Prophet Jeremiah,’ Gladstone went on. ‘And I’ve always thought he has a real feeling for the Song of Songs, which is the “Song of Solomon”.’

  Mrs Meirion-Pughe swung round on him. ‘You mind your tongue, boy,’ she said very fiercely, but very quietly.

  ‘Sorry,’ Gladstone said, ‘thought you’d come over for a little discussion on such matters.’

  ‘We’ll tell you why we’ve come – soon enough. As soon as this little boy has gone home to his mother.’

  ‘Matriculated,’ the Minister said to the fire, ‘done very well.’

  ‘And he’s not going home,’ Gladstone said flatly. ‘Lew stays. Anything you have to say to me can be said in front of him. He’s the soul of discretion. In fact, he was christened Lew Discretion Morgan – though he rarely uses his middle name, for reasons that will no doubt be obvi…’

  ‘Enough!’ Mrs Meirion-Pughe roared. ‘Quite enough of your cheek!’ Her nose twitched angrily. ‘So – you do realise, Gladstone Williams, that it is time someone spoke to you?’

  ‘I only assumed you’d come to talk,’ Gladstone said. ‘I could be wrong. After all – neither of you has been farther than the doorstep before…’

  Mrs Meirion-Pughe reared up, almost the way swans do, except that swans are more graceful. ‘Watch your tongue, boy,’ she warned in a hollow voice. ‘That tongue of yours will get you into serious trouble…’

  ‘Impossible to see everybody,’ the Minister protested. ‘Many sheep in my flock…’

  ‘How true,’ Gladstone said, and I feared for him. These two weren’t like Gwynfor Roberts’ mother and father up there on the Hill.

  ‘Beautifully put, A. H.,’ said Mrs Meirion-Pughe, but there was a bit of irony creeping up on her, too, when she added, ‘Perhaps you’d like me to begin?’

  ‘Well – perhaps – yes.’ The Minister gave her a little wave.

  ‘I know,’ Gladstone said, ‘you’ve come to give me a row because I got up at the inquest, because I spoke to the crowd from off the police station wall, and because I got my picture in the paper. Is that right?’

  ‘Not a row,’ the Minister broke in. ‘No, no – we are not the police force, are we, Mrs Meirion-Pughe?’

  ‘The police force came this morning,’ Gladstone said. ‘They suggested the British Army as a way to salvation. What do you recommend?’

  Oh, careful, careful, I thought.

  ‘Gladstone,’ said the Minister reprovingly.

  ‘Gladstone Williams!’ barked Mrs Meirion-Pughe.

  Ever since that night at the Band of Hope when Gladstone had done his sermon on the Parable of the Sower – using real grass seed which he cast over the children – Mrs Meirion-Pughe had watched him very carefully.

  ‘Blasphemer!’ she cried. ‘Sacrilegious fool! Son of darkness! Wicked, wicked boy!’

  ‘Mrs Meirion-Pughe,’ the Minister protested, ‘steady!’ Then he spoke to Gladstone, but his eyes were fearfully on the woman all the time. ‘We’ve come for a chat – just a little chat, that’s all…’

  ‘Come to tell him in the sight of God to mend his ways,’ she broke in harshly. ‘Come to tell him to have no farther association with men of evil character, men who can pervert the mind, twist the soul…’

  ‘Dead men,’ Gladstone said.

  Mrs Meirion-Pughe had started to froth a little at the mouth. ‘One of them,’ she cried in a strange, high voice, ‘dead by his own brother’s hand. The other one a murderer. Does that mean nothing to you?’

  ‘A dead murderer,’ Gladstone said.

  Mrs Meirion-Pughe leaned forward, her face very close to Gladstone’s. ‘Death excuses everything, is that right? You silly boy! You’ve spent the summer in the company of murderers! You’ve made yourself a party to their evil ways. You’ve been their servant, their tool – the tool of sinful men. They’ve used you! And now you’ve brought shame on your Chapel by making an exhibition of yourself – walking at their funeral, interrupting the processes of the law, posing for that picture…’

  ‘That,’ Gladstone said flatly, ‘I didn’t do…’

  ‘Posed for it,’ she insisted. ‘Trying to be smart. You always try to be so smart, don’t you? Foolish, foolish boy!’ Her voice dropped now to a curious, flat monotone, her eyes were closed, and the saliva ran from the corners of her mouth. ‘Without shame,’ she went on, ‘corrupt, without fundamental decency. You have chosen the ways of darkness – scoffer, blasphemer, sinner that you are…. Your mind is warped….’

  ‘Steady now, Mrs Meirion-Pughe,’ the Minister said. ‘Oh, steady, steady…’

  I looked at Gladstone as she continued. Her long beak was barely six inches from his averted face. ‘It’s a stony road you’re on,’ she said, ‘and all is black around you.’ Gladstone’s mouth was clenched tight. ‘The night is dark and you are far from home – and there is nothing, nothing to guide you, except for one, small light up there on the hill…. Do you see it, foolish boy? Answer me – do you see it?’ I knew by Gladstone’s eyes, by the movement of muscle in his throat, that he was inward
ly convulsed with laughter. ‘The one solitary light that can save you….’ Her hand came up in a dramatic wave, and Gladstone had to move his head to avoid it…. ‘See it? See it now? That one small light on the hill? Do you know what it is? Do you, foolish boy? Answer me! Answer!’

  Gladstone swallowed hard. ‘I didn’t pose for the picture,’ he said, and had to clamp his mouth tight again to stop the laughter.

  Mrs Meirion-Pughe stepped back from him. ‘Well, you stupid boy! You silly, stupid boy,’ she said. ‘You must be blind!’

  ‘Not blind,’ Gladstone said. ‘Simply in the kitchen of our house, with the electric burning up the meter…. And stop calling me stupid….’

  Mrs Meirion-Pughe swung round on the Minister. ‘Speak to him,’ she commanded. ‘Can’t you see how far gone he is?’

  The Rev A. H. Jones clasped and unclasped his hands, got up and sat down again. ‘Well – yes. Yes. Ha, ha!’

  Mrs Meirion-Pughe glared at him, then advanced towards Gladstone again. ‘Since no one else will speak to you, Gladstone Williams, then I shall. Answer me a few simple questions, please. Now – do you know the difference between Right and Wrong? Do you?’

  Gladstone looked bewildered. ‘On a Sunday-school level, do you mean? I mean, are we talking about basic right and wrong, or what is right and wrong for the world around us?’

  ‘Did you hear that?’ Mrs Meirion-Pughe flung the question at the Minister. ‘Boy,’ she said, ‘boy – answer me this. You do know that there is Good and Bad in the world, don’t you?’

  Gladstone nodded very emphatically.