From Aberystwyth with Love

by Malcolm Pryce

  ‘What did he die of?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Esau.’

  ‘He was smothered in the night.’

  ‘Who by?’

  ‘I don’t know. A goblin. They never caught him.’

  ‘A goblin?’

  ‘Yes. That’s what the policeman said. The front door was locked but goblins have magic keys, you see. They found Esau next morning in my arms, cold as stone. Mam has never got over it – honestly! The way she goes on about it sometimes anyone would think I’d done it.’ He nudged my arm with the back of his hand. ‘You should read this, it’s ever so good. You’d like the Glad Game. Do you want to have a go?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Don’t be like that. There’s no use crying over spilt milk. Come on, we’ll play the Glad Game. It’ll cheer you up in no time. It goes like this: I’m sad that mam sent us to bed but I’m glad she didn’t send us to the cow shed.’

  ‘OK, I’m glad we had no supper because it helps us have compassion for the starving children around the world.’

  ‘Hey, you’re good at this. I’m glad we got sent to bed because I get to talk to my new friend Louie.’

  ‘And it’s good, too, because we don’t really have to go to bed.’

  Meici looked puzzled. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s not like we have to put pyjamas on or anything, is it?’

  He examined my face for a hint that I might be pulling his leg. ‘Are you mad?’ he said. ‘Of course we have to go to bed.’

  I stood up and walked downstairs and out through the front door. As I crossed the smear of grit that passed for a garden path my muscles stiffened in anticipation of a challenge from Meici’s mum. But none came. I relaxed and cast a brief look back. In the upstairs window Meici’s face was pressed to the glass, eyes gleaming with awe or fear at my act of treason. Or maybe it was the sharp gleam of spite and the dim vestigial memory of a crime he committed on the threshold of his life; one so terrible they had to pin it on a goblin. I fumbled with the latch on the gate, hands shaking like those of an alcoholic reaching for the first drink of the day.

  Chapter 14

  It was a long walk to the bus stop and Calamity had gone by the time I got to the office. Eeyore had left a book open on my desk. It was Llewellyn’s History of the Welsh Stylite, with a passage referring to the spiritual malaise called acedia underlined. It said, ‘And when this has taken possession of some unhappy soul, it produces dislike of the place, disgust with the cell, and disdain and contempt of the brethren who dwell with him or at a little distance . . .’ This must be the sickness that afflicts the private detective in the lurid electric-blue desert night, the neon wilderness of Aberystwyth.

  I took the envelope that had held the séance tape out of the drawer and smelled it. I explored the feeling of disquiet that had taken up abode in my heart.

  Had the reappearance of Abercuawg made everyone aware of the void in their lives and the stratagems they employed to conceal it? Faith, ice cream, arresting people . . . Each chooses his own road. One man makes Ampersandium, the world’s greatest placebo. Others set sail for promised lands such as Patagonia, Hughesovka . . . Ffanci Llangollen, they say, has wheeled a shopping trolley around the coast of Britain in search of the daughter she lost. Vanya, too, had filled his life with a quest, and yet I got the impression that he did not seriously expect it ever to be resolved. The important thing was the quest.

  I left the office and walked down Terrace Road. The cries of children from the beach became discernible as the light slowly changed hue; there was always a subtle change in the children’s voices at this time of the afternoon, as if in a recess of their hearts they were registering the subliminal decline of the sun, the soft, barely perceptible transition from a hot summer day to the edge of evening. The ability to perceive it is innate, the way the knowledge of the river of birth is hardwired into the soul of a salmon.

  All seaside towns are in a state of permanent autumn. This is evident in the ruins of the former great civilisation that once built Aberystwyth: a scar in the hillside beneath Pen Dinas too smoothly curved to be the work of nature, it turns out to be the cicatrice of a lost railway line. If you consult an old map you discover with a shock that it was built long ago to Milford Haven; you can’t even get a bus there now. Other archaeological relics left by this vanished race of super-beings include the bandstand which now has a padlocked concertina door like an old garage. Once it had its own silver band, in a town that boasted two orchestras, one at the Pier and one at the winter gardens on top of Constitution Hill. Now no one even knows what a winter garden is. I don’t. Is it really a garden or does it mean just a park of some sort? According to the old guidebooks, the ones that tell you to eat kidneys for breakfast and give advice about buying your fishing licence, there used to be a winter garden on Constitution Hill. But you will look in vain for any trace of it now.

  Nowhere is the emptiness more acutely symbolised than in the institution of the pleasure pier where no pleasure is to be had. Originally piers were functional constructions, built to tie boats up to, boats that once plied the main with big smokestacks and restaurants and children in sailor suits or miniature frock coats; but the boats have gone and the projections into the sea remain like those towers they built to enable passengers to alight from Zeppelins in the early years of the twentieth century. The forlorn holidaymakers still walk to the end and back, partaking in a ritual whose meaning escapes them, unaware that there had once been a purpose to this two-hundred-yard walk out to sea. In the absence of anything else to do they buy ice cream or spend money in the amusement arcade and after a while this becomes the point.

  The spiritual befuddlement that dogs the man of Aberystwyth at every turn is thus an unavoidable part of his fate because it is written into the very stones of the town in which he dwells. Other talismanic cities of the world such as Timbuktu, Troy and Gilgamesh grew out of the imperatives of trade and commerce or war but, like Babylon, and the towns of the American gold rush, Aberystwyth grew as a town of pleasure. A town in which human felicity was perverted into the singing, carousing, giddy tarantella, the vertiginous stovepipe hat debauch.

  When I reached Sospan’s stall there was a sign saying, ‘No specials until further notice’. Uncle Vanya was there, looking worried. Sospan wore the face of a man whose hour has come.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I said.

  ‘Something’s happened,’ said Vanya.

  ‘Something?’

  ‘Oh, Mr Knight,’ cried Sospan. ‘Something terrible, something awful, the worst, the absolute worst thing that can befall an ice-cream man has befallen me. I may have to leave town under an assumed identity.’

  ‘Oh dear. And no specials today either?’

  ‘No specials. It may be that there will never again be specials.’

  ‘Not even a Fish Milt Sundae?’

  ‘Yes, mock me in my hour of need,’ said Sospan. ‘The Fish Milt Sundae was the cause of my downfall. As you know, it was not exactly popular; possibly the most despised flavour I have ever served. But there was one customer who liked it. A very devout and religious woman of advancing years, not normally given to levity, who came every afternoon for three weeks to eat my special Fish Milt Sundae.’ The ice man paused and exhaled in despair. ‘Today I have received news that she is pregnant.’

  I said, ‘You can’t get pregnant like that . . . can you?’

  ‘Mr Knight, I will be frank with you. I assumed that you couldn’t. But, as you know, biology is not my strong suit.’

  ‘There must be another explanation,’ I said.

  ‘She is not the sort who would be mistaken about such a thing. She used to work for the St John Ambulance Brigade.’

  ‘Maybe she got pregnant by the conventional route.’

  ‘Impossible.’

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘That I cannot tell you.’ He put a plain vanilla cornet on the stands in front of me. ‘On the house. I might as well use up the stock be
fore I leave town.’

  ‘Are things really that bad?’

  ‘What can I do?’ he replied. ‘What would you do?’

  ‘If it was me,’ I said, ‘before I made such a drastic move I would first demand a paternity test. And then, if it was established that I was the father—’

  ‘I’ve spoken to her doctor, there is no doubt about it.’

  ‘I’m not doubting her condition,’ I said. ‘Just the cause. Sospan, sometimes in situations like this even respectable ladies do not always tell the truth. It is not unknown, for example, for a lady of good reputation to fall victim to the sugary lies of some passing Don Juan and later when her belly gets big she seeks out a decent and unworldly man such as you, in the hope of deceiving him into believing it is his.’

  ‘You mean,’ said Sospan, ‘like Mary and Joseph?’

  ‘That is an extreme example of the phenomenon. Far more humdrum examples are to be found in the Cambrian News every week. Although the Fish Milt Sundae routine is new. You definitely ought to check if it is yours.’

  Sospan stared out at the sea, surrounded by the shattered fragments of his world. ‘And if I do that and it turns out to be mine?’

  ‘Then you should do the honourable thing,’ I said.

  Vanya and I took our ice creams to the seaside railings and watched the slow drift of people packing up on the beach. At some point, once the heat loses its edge, a chill breeze can arise that throws a soft shadow over our joy.

  ‘Things are far worse than I expected,’ said Vanya gloomily. ‘I saw Calamity in Great Darkgate Street, she has told me everything.’

  ‘What has she told you?’

  ‘About the troll brides.’

  ‘I wouldn’t pay any attention to that, it’s not serious.’

  ‘Do you think my worries can be so easily dismissed?’

  ‘You can worry about anything you like but I wouldn’t waste time on troll brides.’

  ‘This is a bitter blow. Of all the fates that I imagined might have befallen the child whose spirit possessed my daughter this is one I did not consider.’

  ‘I’m sure the ones you did consider are far more likely.’

  ‘My grief is not so easily assuaged. To become the bride of a troll is a fearsome fate, especially for a child. The Portuguese have a word for this heaviness in my heart, saudade. In Hughesovka we call it hiraeth, a Welsh word, I believe, which denotes a form of spiritual homesickness.’ He pushed himself up and away from the railings. ‘Come, we must drink. There is no other remedy.’

  The sky in the west had turned the colour of geraniums and Aberystwyth began to unfold like a rosebud in time-lapse photography; a sick rose whose innards have been eaten by a worm. The air turned sultry and the breeze of the summer night wafted over the Prom heavily laden and moist. A rich assortment of smells were intricately intertwined in the sensual tapestry: vanilla, dead mollusc, seaweed, aftershave, suntan lotion, spilled ice cream, soiled nappy, stale sweat, the electric ozone smell of the machines in the amusement arcades, take-away curry, fried onions, chips, hot dogs, testosterone, salty breeze, fish milt and, of course, prowl car, handcuff grease and the unmistakable sour fumes of police sarcasm.

  Vanya produced a bottle of vodka from a bag, took my arm in his and we ambled along the Prom. The shift changed, the decent folk began to scurry away to their chalets and caravans, and the dance began; the giddy jig. The hustlers and the hoods and fixers, the druids in their sharp Swansea suits, the girls in the stovepipe hats and dreams of making it sparking in their eyes, the drunken brawling sailors, the morose fishermen and melancholic tradesmen, the lonely and the damned, the haunted and the hunted and the exiles all converged on the electric-blue Prom to sweat away the night.

  Vanya breathed in deeply and exhaled with appreciation. ‘Bignoniaceous,’ he said. ‘The word is bignoniaceous.’

  I gave him a puzzled look.

  ‘Yes, my dear friend Louie, bignoniaceous. There is a word for everything and for this experience too, there is a word.’

  ‘What does it mean?’

  ‘It describes a type of plant with trumpet-shaped flowers adapted for pollination by bats. Did you know that? I have great respect for this mammal. Few animals are quite so unfairly slandered as the harmless and affable bat. Their sonar is so good they can use it to catch fish; their sense of smell is far superior to that of the bee. All that the rose needs to do to attract the noble bee is give off its hot vapour to the summer breeze, and yet what is the scent but that of the rose? The rose smells of its own essence, which is a feat we all manage, and counts as no great achievement. But the bignoniaceous plant, faced with the challenge of attracting the attention of the far more discerning, though unloved, bat has to try harder. Bignoniaceous plants smell of cabbage and mice. Did you know this?’

  I confessed that I did not.

  ‘I have come to the conclusion this is the same trick repeated every spring by the old courtesan Aberystwyth. She cakes on the all-concealing foundation, and stands at the back of the chorus line, where the shadows are deeper, hoping that her faded charms will last another season, while the leg-kicking strumpets at the front twirl petticoats that flash and blaze like fireworks in the hot footlights. Is it not so, dear Louie?’

  ‘I’ve never heard Aberystwyth described like that before but it captures her perfectly.’

  He examined my face to see if I were in earnest and finding that I was said, ‘The vodka is good.’

  A thought flashed across my mind like a swallow through a barn. I realised a simple truth: I loved Vanya, although I was not sure why.

  We reached the end of the Prom beneath Constitution Hill and we each placed a single foot upon the railing in accordance with a ritual whose origins are lost in the mists of time.

  Vanya spread his arms and exclaimed, ‘Yet the bat is generally disdained by poets, even though bat-pollination is responsible for one of the greatest gifts from animals to mankind, namely tequila. As an analgesic for the soul it is far more effective than the breathless rose-scented summer night. In fact, it is precisely this quality of the summer night that tequila can cure. But the crowning glory of the bat-pollinator’s art is the durian fruit from Southeast Asia. It is something of an acquired taste. A Victorian traveller once described the experience of eating it as that of eating strawberries and cream in a public convenience. This is because the odour has a faint whiff of carrion about it. To which is added notes of civet, sewage, skunk spray, turpentine, caramel, onions, custard and gym sock.’

  We turned and walked back, towards the bandstand. It is not likely that anyone would have eaten strawberries and cream in the convenience in the public shelter on the Prom, but as we passed it by an old woman emerged eating jam tarts. She pushed a shopping trolley across the zebra crossing. It was Ffanci Llangollen. In her trolley was a dirty woollen coat, black-and-yellow-hooped football socks, mitts and a fake sheepskin hat screwed up into plastic shopping bags from which all the lettering had worn away.

  ‘I love the old Prom,’ she said. The words weren’t really addressed to us, nor anyone, but said simply to the night. She had long ago learned not to expect a response.

  I said, ‘We all do.’

  Uncle Vanya offered her the bottle of vodka and she looked grateful and surprised. She took a drink and patted her chest as she registered the invigorating effect of the medicine. ‘Your smell reminds me of my time in the Stolypin car,’ said Uncle Vanya. ‘I do not mean that unkindly,’ he added quickly. ‘That was the greatest event in my life. We seek happiness with an insatiable hunger, like plants seek the sun, and yet it is the dark times in which we gain our real insight into the mysteries of life.’

  Ffanci, whose entire life had been spent exemplifying this philosophy, did not deem it worthy of comment and took another drink. Vanya took Ffanci’s trolley and wheeled it over to the shelter. I left them and walked over to the Spar on Terrace Road to buy more bottles. I sensed it was going to be another of those nights. An old man in a charit
y shop suit stood by the door and asked me for the price of a cuppa. I gave him a fiver and told him not to waste it on tea or any other type of soft drink. He thanked me for the advice, and waited discreetly for me to leave before going in to buy something to slake his thirst.

  When I returned they were absorbed in Uncle Vanya’s life story.

  ‘In the camps men would play cards and because they had nothing to wager they would stake your life. And you would not even know it until the moment came for the gambler to pay his debt. You could be in the same room and remain unaware that they were playing for the privilege of murdering you. This was the way of the two men Yuri and Ivan. They befriended me and showed me great kindness and I was too naïve to understand that no good could come from their solicitude. Instead, I was touched. No one had ever shown me kindness before. Perhaps the kindness of the wolf is better than nothing to a lonely man. The other inmates perceived this and watched in silence, striving to keep the mocking look from their faces as Yuri and Ivan gave me extra rations. They told me they were going without food themselves in order to help a fellow Christian soul and I was deeply touched. Of course they were not going without at all, some other poor wretch was. Since the food in the camps was never more than barely enough to keep a man alive, then it follows that the extra food they fed me must have led to the death of another man, and his death still weighs heavily on my conscience. But I loved these two men deeply because they fed me, which is the greatest act of love you can show to a man in the camps. They also used their power to get me an easy job as a clerk in the office, and that too meant the difference between life and death. If it was not for those two criminals I would surely have perished that first winter. I loved them, for how could I have known what they had in store for me? How could I have known that on the day of my arrival in the camp Ivan won me in a card game?