Make Room for the Jester

by Stead Jones

I kept quiet and put on an innocent face. By the middle of the afternoon, once the Super had chased us out, I was beginning to enjoy my new status. I was in the know, hiding something…. Bet he knows, they would be saying in the town, he’s a dark one, bet he’s been in on this from the start…. As I walked the town among the squat, raw farming people who had come in for the shops and the pictures, I turned up the collar of my coat and hunched my shoulders, and affected a small smile that was, I thought, both knowing and mysterious…. But once darkness had fallen my anxiety for Gladstone came to the fore: miles away, cold, maybe hungry, he’d be, the children fretting and whining. Dewi was in the same mood. ‘Should never have taken them children,’ he said. Maxie came up with a succession of daft ideas. ‘Perhaps he’s still in Porthmawr,’ was the only one we acted on. We went down to the Moonbeam, but there was no one – nothing to see, either, except the mud around her deeply printed by size ten policeman’s boots. That night I slept fitfully, in and out of a black dream.

  Meira in the morning was strict and very serious. I was sent off to chapel ‘to think about things properly’, and there they must have spotted me because every second word was truthfulness, and the sermon was about the evil of deceit…. At two, in spite of all protests, I was ordered to the Sunday school. ‘Mr Williams won’t be there for a start,’ I said, ‘and you can’t have a class without the teacher.’ But he was – clean suited, clean shaven and clear of eye. Quietly, gently, he took us through a few verses from the Acts of the Apostles, but he soon gave that up and began to talk about Wales. ‘A conquered people, an ancient, conquered people,’ he said. ‘We are frustrated by the facts of history, bogged down by the very thing that gives us brilliance and colour – our emotions….’ Oh, it was the same old Rowland, and I was glad to find him so again. Dewi and Maxie helped me out in giving him all the details about Gladstone. He was very interested but showed no excitement. ‘It doesn’t matter where he’s gone,’ he said at the end. ‘To go is to protest.’

  He looked all set for a long speech, but at that moment we were collared by Abraham Evans and Dr Gwynn. They took us to the small vestry where Mrs Meirion-Pughe and the Rev A. H. Jones were waiting. They lined us up against the wall, as if for a firing squad, and they closed the door. Dr Gwynn leaned back against it, for all the world one of Edward G. Robinson’s henchmen at the pictures. The Minister looked very nervous and very uncomfortable.

  ‘Well, Mr Jones?’ Mrs Meirion-Pughe said.

  The Minister shuffled a bit, then stepped forward and looked at each of us in turn. ‘Does any one of you know anything about the disappearance of Gladstone Williams and these little children? Dewi Price?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Ah – Max – ah – you.’ He pointed at Maxie.

  ‘So help me God, no.’

  ‘Lew Morgan?’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  The Minister crunched his false teeth. ‘Honestly, now?’

  We all nodded.

  ‘Right,’ he said, and stepped aside, letting us go.

  Mrs Meirion-Pughe charged forward. ‘Just a minute, Mr Jones,’ she snapped. ‘What about the Bible?’

  The Minister kept his back to her and closed his eyes. ‘There will be no swearing on the Bible,’ he said slowly but firmly. ‘There will be no swearing on anything. I believe these boys. Open the door. Let them go.’

  We went out in a silence that could only be measured in kilowatts.

  That night – in reality, the early hours of Monday morning – Rowland Williams’ workshop on Lower Hill, Porthmawr, Wales, became an enormous bonfire, a great flame, as he had said, burning in the shabby dark. Rowland set it off himself; timber exposed to long, damp years does not burn with such intense brightness without a can or two of petrol…. And, in any case, Rowland was inside the workshop, at the centre of the great glow and the blazing heat. He came running out, so the morning stories had it, like a human torch, bursting out of the fire in an explosion of sparks. They exaggerated. Rowland came out of the fire slowly, almost reluctantly. He was wearing his long greatcoat, singed it is true, but not on fire; and he came with sleepwalker’s arms straight for me where I stood at the front of the crowd. His hands were blackened stumps and stinking. I cowered back, but he wasn’t making for me or anyone else. The crowd parted for him. Only the hiss and crackle of the burning workshop could be heard. Rowland went floundering through to the darkness of Lower Hill, and we left the fire and followed him, all of us, until he fell. He looked very small lying there on the worn sett-stones. I kept back and wept for him.

  XXI

  The new teacher to replace old Evans Thomas had arrived. He was all pallor and pimples, and it was obvious by the row he gave me for being late, by the way he escorted me personally to the Head for giving cheek that he was new to the game…. Mr Penry told him off in front of me for leaving Sixth Form Arts to their own devices, then ordered him back, gave me a smile as if in apology and asked me to sit down. In no time at all we were having one of his inquiries – one trap question after another, interrupted only by good advice about my choice of friends…. My friends, one in hospital with charred hands, the other God knew where, were all right, and I told him they were all right.

  ‘You have revealed considerable promise,’ he said. By now it was an insult. I wanted to say don’t you know a good memory when you see one, wanted to swear at him too, and hated myself because I hadn’t got the courage.

  He gave up after break. I went back to the class: we had the new teacher again, and the carve-up was in full swing. I kept out of it until Goronwy Jones, always the boy for trouble, put his face close to mine and began to sing the one about my wandering boy. That did it. We fought on the desks, on the floor, out in the corridor. It took Mr Penry himself to part us. We had the cane and a lecture and were suspended for the rest of the day. So I arrived home at ten to twelve in time to catch Meira on her return from the station. She called me wicked, said it was all the bad company I’d been keeping, then added, ‘Making a spectacle of himself – bowing to all that crowd watching him come off the train with them little children – policeman guarding them and everything…’

  ‘He’s back?’ I cried. ‘Gladstone’s back?’ And the tears came just as freely as they had done for Rowland Williams.

  ‘Went to Chester,’ Walter told me.

  ‘My poor babies!’ Martha wailed at the door as she took another pound of sugar from someone full of questions and sympathy.

  ‘It’s a Roman town,’ Dora told me. ‘They had to build it to conquer Wales. Have a little bridge going over the street and everything.’

  ‘Like they were returned to me from the dead, Mrs bach,’ Martha was saying.

  ‘Had a lovely time,’ Mair said. ‘Real comic it was…’

  Martha came back from the door and showered them all with kisses. ‘My little babies! All right now you’re with your mami, eh?’

  ‘All right before,’ Walter said.

  ‘When’s Gladstone coming back?’ Dora inquired.

  Martha refused to look at me. ‘Oh – he’ll be back…’

  ‘Going to be a case?’ I said.

  She shook her head, still avoiding my eyes. ‘It’s the police, see. Told them I didn’t want a case, though what he did was cruel – taking my babies. And he’s seventeen and everything…’

  ‘What’s he doing at the police station?’ I said.

  ‘Well,’ she said, reaching for a cigarette, ‘wants warning, doesn’t he? Wants teaching a lesson. Not right what he did…’

  ‘Keeping him there a long time,’ I said.

  ‘Super said to leave him cool his heels in a cell…’

  She was all guilty about something, and I was determined to find out what it was. ‘He’ll be home tonight, then, will he?’

  Martha jogged little Walter up and down on her knee. ‘Well – they got to decide, haven’t they?’

  ‘Decide what?’

  ‘What to do with him. It’s been all wrong, him at home with childre
n and getting funny ideas. Reading and that all the time. Mrs Meirion-Pughe said it was all wrong.’

  ‘Did she?’ I said. ‘So what will they decide? Off to a school somewhere?’

  Martha gave a loud, false laugh. ‘I told you – no case. I’m not bringing a case against my own. I just signed this paper…’

  ‘Paper? To say what?’

  She held a finger to her lips and pointed at the children. ‘Well – so they can decide, that’s all. I mean – he might take them from me again. Might try…’

  I wanted to say ‘while you’re boozing at the Harp’, but I couldn’t be cruel to Martha. She was too soft, too hopeless, too easy a target. ‘I’m going to see him,’ I said.

  Martha opened her mouth wide. ‘S – E – A,’ she spelt out. Then she waved a finger up and down. ‘You know – waves…’

  Horror chilled me. Gladstone going to sea – being shipped out! Oh, good God no, it wasn’t possible. Only in the olden days did they send you to sea….

  ‘Good place fixed for him,’ Martha went on. ‘I had to sign this paper because of his age, see. Super and everybody says it’ll do him good, make a man of him.’

  I marched past her to the door, Walter and Mair tagging on and whooping after me. But they were soon back to the kitchen when Dora, high-pitched and incredulous, cried out, ‘Mami, you don’t mean Gladstone has to go to sea, do you?’ I didn’t wait to hear how Martha tackled that one.

  Super Edwards himself came to the long counter in the police station. ‘Another one,’ he said as he buttoned up his jacket. ‘Just chased your pals away.’

  I tried to keep my voice steady. ‘Can I have a word with Gladstone, please?’

  The Super had only recently finished his tea. He brushed his moustache and sucked at his teeth while he pondered my request. ‘Been a lot of trouble, you lads,’ he sighed. ‘All summer. Got away with a lot. Know that, don’t you?’ I nodded. ‘That one in there’s got off very lucky. Should have had the stick across his backside. Know that, don’t you?’ I had to nod in case he wouldn’t let me in to see Gladstone. ‘He’s daft, that one. Keeps on asking me what books I’ve read!’ The Super pawed his face. ‘But daft or not – what’s got my goat is he’s not even sorry for all the trouble he’s caused. He’s enjoying himself in there! What’s a bright boy like you want to talk to him for?’

  He went on like that for ten minutes, and I nodded and said yessir. Then, quite unexpectedly, he raised the hinged part of the counter. ‘Five minutes is all you’ve got,’ he said, and he led me through his office to a large, bare room that smelled of disinfectant. ‘Sit on that side of the table,’ he ordered. ‘Remember this is a special privilege I’m giving.’ Then he went out leaving the door open.

  When he returned with Gladstone, I stood up. ‘Down!’ barked the Super. ‘Here’s your friend.’ He motioned Gladstone to the chair across the table from me. ‘I’ll be in my office, listening to every word,’ he added. ‘No monkey business, don’t forget.’ Then he turned and looked at Gladstone and laughed.

  ‘Very nice of you to come, Lew,’ Gladstone said in a very affected accent. ‘Why don’t you sit down yourself, Super – and have a good discussion with us?’

  The Super went out saying, ‘Had enough of you and your bloody discussions.’

  ‘Did you get my note, Lew?’ Gladstone said, winking at me. The Super turned quickly and came back and leaned against the doorpost. ‘I tied it to the pigeon’s leg and told the bird to fly straight to Lew Morgan’s palatial residence on Lower Hill….’

  Give over clowning, I was going to say, but the Super broke in with, ‘What pigeon? What note’s that?’

  ‘Well, of course,’ Gladstone went on, still keeping up his affected accent, ‘is it not a well-known fact that in each cell there has to be a bird? I said pigeon, but perhaps it was a starling, or a robin – it doesn’t really matter – a bird to carry a message to a friend. Why – even in the Old Testament…’

  ‘Oh, God!’ said the Super.

  ‘All I wanted was the pills,’ Gladstone went on. ‘Did you bring them, Lew?’

  ‘What pills?’ the Super roared at me. ‘You’ve not brought this daft bugger any pills, have you?’

  I shook my head. Why did Gladstone have to be like this? Why couldn’t he be serious?

  ‘I’m not having you doing away with yourself in my cells,’ the Super said. ‘Now you watch out, boy – I’ve had enough of your funny business.’ The Super went out, banging the door shut behind him, then remembered and pushed it open again.

  ‘No time for clowning,’ I said.

  Gladstone swept the long hair clear of his forehead. ‘A debatable point, Lew. But when you are a failure, and you’re about to be deported – what else can you do?’

  ‘Change your voice,’ I said. ‘You’re only talking to me…’

  His face split into a broad grin. ‘But I’ve been to England, Lew – for the first time in my life, and by courtesy of the London, Midland and Scottish railway in one of their most luxurious cattle trucks. You know how you’re supposed to talk when you’ve been to England, don’t you? Well – I’ve been.’

  I was annoyed with him now. ‘Give over,’ I said sharply. ‘What did you want to go for, anyway?’

  ‘To see foreign parts, Lew,’ he said in his normal voice. ‘To taste strange air. To give the little ones a treat…’

  ‘In a cattle truck,’ I said.

  He was surprised at my tone. ‘Well – truthfully it wasn’t a cattle truck. It was a guard’s van with no guard. I only said cattle truck because it sounded more adventurous. It was a guard’s van on a long goods train, and the damn thing went non-stop all the way to Chester. Something mysterious there, Lew.’ He pointed a finger at me. ‘Why should a goods train leave Wales at five on a Saturday morning and go non-stop to Chester? Intrigue somewhere, Lew bach. Who knows how many political prisoners were being shipped out from their native land in those cattle trucks?’

  Impatiently I pushed my chair back. ‘Be serious,’ I said, ‘we’ve all been worried about you…’

  For a brief moment his face became grave, then the smile was back again. ‘Been serious all summer, me,’ he said, back again with that ridiculous accent. ‘I’m a failure, old chap. I’ve even become an Anglicised Welshman after two days! Can’t fail more than that, can you?’

  ‘Give up,’ I said. ‘Talk properly…’

  ‘Been in England so long I’ve forgotten all my Welsh.’

  ‘Jesus!’ I said angrily. ‘Twll tîn bob Sais…’

  ‘Exactly, old chap! That’s just it.’ His eyes sparkled even in that dim light. ‘That’s the whole trouble. You say to yourself where can I escape to, assuming that I want to escape? And the only answer is England! The other side of the dyke!’ He clapped his hands loudly above the table. The Super appeared in the doorway and glared at us, then retired again. ‘I’m a failure,’ Gladstone went on, lowering his voice a little, ‘because I picked the wrong train and the wrong time of year. Now, if it had been spring I might have made something of it – but not in the wet and the cold. And there’s these trains – why isn’t there a train leaving Porthmawr station and going non-stop to Paris, say? Or, better still, a non-stopper to the Mediterranean, or the Nile, or Samarkand…? Is that a place, Lew – Samarkand?’

  I kicked the table leg. ‘You’re mocking me, that’s what…’

  ‘No, Lew!’ he said earnestly. ‘That’s not true. I’m just telling you that if you want to escape you have to go to England, and that’s the snag. When I realised what I’d done to those little children, I practically gave us up to the police.’ Then, all too briefly for my liking, he was very serious, ‘I could have gone on, but I hadn’t anywhere in mind – except here.’

  ‘But you’re letting them send you to sea,’ I cried out angrily.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ he admitted, the smile back on his face. ‘The Super’s coming with me. He wanted to beat me this afternoon, but the Rev A. H. Jones wouldn’t let him. Oh, they ha
d a long chat about my future – public enemy number one, that’s me – and they were on the phone and all sorts. Now it’s all fixed. I’m off on the South America run with Captain Jenkins – he’s a Bible puncher too – and Martha has signed the paper to let me go…’

  ‘But you don’t want to go,’ I protested.

  He shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t say that…’

  ‘You’re giving in to them, letting them do what they want!’ I was angry with him again, angrier still because he was smiling. ‘You won’t, will you? You’ll clear off in Liverpool?’ He shook his head decisively. ‘But why?’ I said. ‘Why?’

  He placed his hands very carefully on the table, fingers pointed as if he was going to play the piano. ‘Lew,’ he said slowly, ‘if I skip out, they’ll be the winners.’ I was baffled, and he could see it, too. ‘Besides,’ he added gently, ‘I’m ready for something new. Buenos Aires – might be all right, Lew. Yes – let’s say I’m ready for something new…’

  The heavy silence that followed was broken by the scrape of the Super’s chair. I opened my mouth to speak, but Gladstone pulled a book out of his pocket and waved me silent with it. ‘I want you to have this, Lew,’ he said. ‘Found it in a railway carriage in Chester. Never knew such books existed… I’ve been wasting my time, really have.’

  I took the book and read out the title. ‘Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert…’

  The Super came in, but Gladstone went on talking. ‘Some of the pages are missing – but you’ll be shaken, Lew. I’ve never read anything like it…. I’ll have to get on to these Frenchmen, and no mistake. Pity I can’t read the language – you lose things in translation – but that might come, don’t you think so, Super?’

  ‘You’ve had long enough,’ the Super said to me.

  ‘Let him stay,’ said Gladstone. ‘The Super’s got a nice place here, Lew. First time I’ve ever had a room of my very own.’

  ‘Out,’ the Super said to me. ‘Come on.’ He looked down at Gladstone. ‘Oh – you’re going to be sorted out, boy bach! You’d better get all the rest you can – get all your talking done, too. Captain Jenkins won’t give you any time for talk…’