Day Aberystwyth Stood Still, page 15
‘Frankie’s dead.’
‘If it’s about the girl . . .’
‘It’s not about the girl.’
He heaved the sigh of a man for whom the act of inhaling is a chore. ‘What’s he doing these days? Still using the blowtorch is he?’
‘I bought you a pint.’
‘That’s kind of you.’ He took a deep draught. ‘Why now? I mean, after all this time, all these years . . . I thought . . .’ He stopped and shook his head. ‘No, Frankie never forgets. I just wondered, that’s all. Why did he never come sooner? I was waiting. I knew, after all the trouble . . .’
‘Frankie’s dead.’
‘To tell you the truth,’ he said, ignoring me, ‘I’m happy. Happy that this day has finally arrived. A life spent looking over your shoulder is not a man’s life, it’s a dog’s. I decided that long ago. When it came I would go quietly, and with dignity. Just make it quick, that’s all.’
‘Frankie’s dead. I saw him die. His last words were of you. He asked me to tell you: Of all the blags you pulled, that one on the Coliseum was the best.’
The old con twisted his head to face me. ‘He said that?’
‘Those were his very words. The silly old bastard was proud of you. He just wasn’t the kind to show it. He said, they don’t make them like Old Richards any more; old school. That’s what he said.’
He repeated the words in a reverential tone. ‘Old school.’
‘Caeriog and Siencyn, and Iestyn.’
He looked surprised. ‘Iestyn? He didn’t rate him, did he?’
‘He mentioned him.’
‘Iestyn was the reason I spent all those years inside sewing mail bags. Siencyn and me wouldn’t have stopped, you see, but Iestyn was driving. He was soft. He was no good. He got out to see what we’d hit. I mean, what sort of robber stops during the getaway to take a pedestrian to the doctor’s?’
‘So you left them both?’
‘I make no apologies for that. There was no other way. We was born on the wrong side of the tracks. They don’t thank people like us for doing a good deed. One thing I’ve learned in this life, the folk at the top are every bit as rotten as we are. They just wear nicer hats.’
‘I wouldn’t disagree with that.’
‘That doctor, spends all that time checking your heart, he should take a look at his own.’
‘You’re not wrong.’
‘He thinks he’s better than a man like me, but it isn’t so. Things I could tell you about him, they’d soon wipe the smile off his face.’ He turned to me. ‘If you see Iestyn, tell him I’m sorry about what we did. There was no way we could stop.’
‘I’ll tell him.’
‘They say he’s back in town. He’s been seen. Hard to believe. Just tell him. I’m too old for fighting battles.’
‘I’ll be glad to.’
‘I’m not scared. The Lord could take me this afternoon and I wouldn’t turn a hair. But, the thing is, I want to tell him. I want him to know, I’m not sorry for driving off like that because there was no way we could avoid it. But I am sorry that they hanged him and not us. That wasn’t right. Normally there’s nothing you can do about it. But if he’s alive, well, I could say to him, I’m sorry they hanged you. That would be something, wouldn’t it?’
I touched his arm and squeezed. ‘Yes, it would. The thing is, though, I need help to find him.’
‘I’m no good to anybody any more. Drink my pint is about all I can do.’
‘What do you know that would wipe the smile off the doc’s face?’
‘I never blab.’
‘I know, and that makes you a true man in my book. But sometimes you have to make exceptions. I’m not trying to trick you, but is it right that your silence protects a man like that? What’s he ever done for you? Tell me what you know, it may help me find Iestyn.’
His brow furrowed as he considered my words. After a while he seemed to make up his mind. ‘We were working in the garage, me and my brother, in Llanfarian. This was before Iestyn arrived in town. The doc bought his fiancée a car from us, a 1963 Austin A35 in petrel grey. When she walked out on him some folk said he’d done her in; Sheriff Preseli started asking questions. Then we did the cinema job and were banged up. A year later she returned to Aberystwyth for a couple of days to collect some things. Driving the same car and all, so that put the wagging tongues to rest, and Preseli went round personally telling the gossips to give it a rest. He said he’d met the woman and so the rumours that the doc had murdered her should stop. And they did, mostly. Funny thing was, though, the engine was in the habit of overheating so they left her car at our garage to have it checked out. My father told me about it. He said it was a different car. Almost identical, with the same number plate, but there were one or two differences only an expert would recognise. The car they originally bought from us had been a 1963 with a 1097-cc engine. But when she came back in 1966 the car was the 1962 with the 948-cc engine.’
I stared at him, wondering how much credence to give to his story. He sat, head still drooped forward.
‘Maybe they just changed the engine.’
‘Wouldn’t have fit in the chassis; it was differently configured.’
‘Or maybe your dad made a mistake.’
‘But what sort of mistake? The number plate was the same, couldn’t have been mistaken about that. The car was different. One thing my dad knew about was cars. I tell you, it wasn’t the same car but someone had gone to a lot of trouble to make it look like it was. Don’t you see? The woman who came back, who was she? Did anyone see her? Yes, I know, lots of people saw her from a distance, but who spoke to her? Who saw her up close? Only the doctor and Sheriff Preseli as far as I can tell. If he did kill her, and the rumours all got a bit too much, well this would be a way to stop them, wouldn’t it? Easy to arrange: find a similar car, get a woman to dress the part, make sure no one meets her . . . you see what I mean?’
‘Sheriff Preseli would need to be in on it.’
‘That’s right. And you’d need a woman to act the part. But no one else need know. I’m just saying, that’s all.’
I thanked him and stood up to leave.
He put his hand on my arm. ‘Is it true that Frankie’s dead?’
‘Yes, it’s true. I saw it happen.’
‘What were his last words?’
‘He cried out for his mum.’
A look of wonder stole across the old man’s face. He opened his mouth to speak but no words came. The image of Frankie Blowtorch on his deathbed, crying for his mum, robbed him of the power of speech.
Meici Jones was in my office when I got back. He stood up as I entered and raised his arms as if playing maracas, swivelled his hips to turn side-on to me and made a clicking sound with his tongue.
‘New suit – got it from Fosters. The mayor says I will be doing some public engagements when the human cannonball starts so I’ll need some new togs. What do you think?’
‘It’s very suave.’
‘Yeah, I think so too. They’ve given me an account. No one else in my village has an account at Fosters. I got these, too.’ He held out a small white paper bag. ‘Gobstoppers. Take one.’
As if mesmerised, I reached into the bag and took one. ‘Thanks, Meici,’ I said. I put the gobstopper on the desk, next to the phone. ‘I’ll have it later, with my tea.’
He walked into the kitchenette and brought two tumblers from the drainer. I was surprised; I didn’t think Meici drank. Before his mum was sent down for murder she oversaw every aspect of his life and was the sort of woman who would smell liquor on a man’s breath from 50 yards away. People like that can smell it tomorrow through a crystal ball.
Meici put the tumblers down and took a small bottle from the inside pocket of his jacket. The bottle contained a chocolate-coloured liquid. He waved the bottle. ‘It took me ages to find where she kept it.’
‘What is it?’
He giggled. ‘My mum’s cough mixture.’ He poured out two small measures, chinked the glasses and handed me one. ‘Made by Auntie Pebim. It’s got a special mushroom in it from the Amazon. Sospan uses it too in his under-the-counter ice cream.’
‘I haven’t got a cough.’
‘Who’s going to know?’
‘What are we celebrating?’
The lines of his cheeks flickered, the corners of his mouth quivered as he tried to bottle the irrepressible excitement. ‘You’ll never guess what.’
‘What?’
He reached under the table and brought out another Fosters suit, in a glistening polythene covering.
‘That looks to me dangerously like the sort of clothes a man might wear at his wedding,’ I said in genuine surprise.
He grinned. ‘I asked Chastity to . . . marry me . . . She said yes!’
I was dumbfounded.
‘What do you say to that, eh?’
‘That’s . . . that’s tremendous.’
‘Okole maluna!’ He raised his glass. ‘That’s Hawaiian for cheers.’
‘Okole maluna!’ I replied. I held my glass up to try and sniff without it being obvious. It seemed inoffensive: mushrooms perhaps or a wooden box used to hold vegetables. I sipped. It was sweet, woody, mossy, but not unpleasant. Meici knocked his back in one and exhaled with satisfaction, slapping his chest in that strange ritual of the amateur drinker.
‘When I was young,’ he said, ‘I sometimes used to pretend to have a cough even though I didn’t. Those were the times when . . .’ Two deep grooves formed at the bridge of his nose as he searched for the right word. ‘I suppose you could say, I was . . . it was . . . I was . . .’
‘Happy?’
His brow furrowed as he contemplated that possibility. Was it possible he had been happy once?
‘When’s the wedding?’ I asked.
‘Next week. I’m going to do my inaugural cannonball flight just before the service. We’re doing it down at Plas Crug, going to invite the whole town.’
‘Sounds like quite an affair.’
‘I think so. I think Chastity deserves it, don’t you?’
‘Isn’t it perhaps . . . oh, I don’t know, a little bit much to do in one day – first human-cannonball jump and getting hitched?’
‘What do you mean, Lou?’
‘It would be a lot on anybody’s plate.’
‘I want to make her proud, Lou. Chastity hasn’t had much of a life. I want to make it special for her.’
‘I can understand that.’
‘Birds, eh?’ he said with the wry detachment of the man of the world.
‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘birds!’
‘I bought her a present. One of those “women’s handkerchiefs”. From the catalogue. Didn’t have to hide it at the end of the lane neither. You should have seen the postman’s face when I told him. “You can come right up to the house, now,” I said, “mum’s not here any more.” Lord of the Manor he called me. Who’d have thought it? He says he might bring a lingerie catalogue next time. I’ll invite you round. You wouldn’t believe how brainy Chastity is. I think of all the birds I’ve had she is the best. She’s nuts about you.’
‘That’s nice.’
‘Always going on about you, she is.’ A thought clouded his brow as he considered the implications of that. He blinked it away. ‘I’m glad really because you are one of my best friends. She says we’re lucky to have found each other, me ’n’ you, Lou. Do you think that?’
‘Yes, we’re very lucky.’
‘I never had a friend before you so Chas says it’s incredible that I found such a good one. Thing is, Lou, I was wondering . . . I know we haven’t known each other that long, but I haven’t got any other friends, so I was wondering . . . will you be my best man?’
I froze and my grip tightened on the tumbler. Meici was so absorbed in the moment he didn’t notice.
‘Chas says we can all go on holiday together, to Caldey Island. I’ve always wanted to go there. I bet you’ve been, haven’t you?’
‘No, but I’ve had one or two clients who have.’
‘Chas has been. She says the best thing is the gift shop. They make their own toffee. Chas says anyone’s allowed to buy it.’
‘That’s what I’ve heard, too.’
Meici shook his head in wonder. ‘Imagine if my mum heard about that! She’d say it was made by Satan; he makes loads of stuff.’
‘How can it be made by Satan if it’s made by monks?’
‘I don’t know. I’ll ask Chas – she’ll know; she knows loads of things. It’s unbelievable really.’ Meici refilled his glass; I put my hand over the top of my glass. The cough mixture seemed to be making him garrulous.
‘You’re probably right, you’re not supposed to have too much of this stuff. Mum only let me have a spoonful just before bed. Auntie Pebim says, if you have a little bit it makes your cough go away and you see a funny shape in the distance but you don’t know what it is. If you have more the shape gets closer and closer until eventually it’s right in front of you and you see it’s a drawbridge to a giant’s castle. Then if you have more, you go across the bridge and Auntie Pebim says you see things on the other side that can really upset you. Sometimes you never come back. Do you believe that?’
‘It’s not how most cough mixtures work, but I guess it could be true.’
‘I can’t make up my mind whether I want to visit the castle. Sometimes I do and sometimes I’m scared to. Do you think we should try and help mum escape from prison?’
‘Who’s we?’
‘Me ’n’ you, Lou.’
‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘Chas says she knows a way to do it. Look!’ He pulled a paper from his pocket and unfolded it. The page had been torn from a children’s picture book and showed a prisoner in a dungeon hanging by his hands from rings set in the wall above his head. An archetypal dungeon-keeper with a big spade-shaped beard and baggy stripy trousers sat at a table eating the prisoner’s food, evidently tormenting him.
‘It’s Erik XIV of Sweden,’ he said pointing at the wretch hanging by his wrists. Chas has been telling me about him. He was in prison for something and his wife used to send him food but the guards ate it all in front of his face and laughed. So he got her to make some pea soup with arsenic in it and the guards ate that and died and he escaped. We could do that. Chas says you can find arsenic everywhere, in apple pips and fly killer and stuff. We could bake mum a cake on her birthday. Chas says she knew someone once who ate arsenic and he nearly died. She says he vomited so much his stomach came out of his mouth.’
‘Erik XIV?’
‘Something like that. It used to happen all the time in the olden days.’
‘What happens if the guards are nice and your mum eats the cake?’
‘But guards are never nice, are they?’
‘I think modern ones are usually OK. It’s not like it is in books, it’s more of a caring profession like social workers or something. Once upon a time it would have been a good plan, in the days when they had really big key rings and prisoners slept on straw, but the world has changed. Everyone eats in a refectory now and the meals are carefully planned according to the prisoners’ calorific and dietary needs as worked out by a team of dieticians; the guards get plenty of food, too, so they don’t have to steal from the prisoners.’
‘You don’t think it’s a good plan, then?’
‘Trust me, Meici, all that would happen is you would end up in gaol, too – for murdering your mum.’
He nodded solemnly. ‘Thing is, Lou, it’s quite lonely living in that house by myself. Do you know what I mean?’
‘Yes, but once you are married all that will change.’
He seemed not to hear me, lost as he was in a world of his own. ‘I sit there and think about things.’ He narrowed his eyes as he recalled his lonely thoughts. ‘You know, Lou, I don’t think my mum ever really . . . really loved me.’
‘I’m sure she did. Please don’t call me Lou.’
‘I never really saw much evidence of it.’
‘Some people find it hard to show.’
He continued to knock back the cough mixture in single gulps while I pretended to drink mine.
‘What did you want to see me about?’
‘There’s something I need to ask you, Lou. Man to man.’
‘Yes?’
‘I’ve been reading the manual, about conjugal duties.’
My innards froze. ‘Meici, I’m not the best . . .’
‘I didn’t know who to ask, and then I thought of you.’
‘Sometimes it’s best to explore without too much formal advice.’
‘It’s the most important part of the whole thing, I don’t want to mess it up. It’s Chastity I’m thinking of, really. I don’t know anything about it. So I thought I’d ask you, I thought old Lou will know what to do.’
‘Meici, as long as you love each other that’s all that matters. The rest is just, I don’t know, just . . .’
‘Just what, Lou?’
‘Just like . . . just like shaking hands, Meici.’
He nodded as a load slowly lifted from his shoulders. ‘So, there’s nothing to it? Not a big deal, like?’
‘No, not a big deal.’
‘Will you do it then?’
‘Do what?’
‘Be my best man.’
I responded with a smile of bogus delight, but my soul squirmed.
Meici said, ‘No, no, wait! Don’t answer. Hang on.’ He scooped the wedding suit up and ran to the kitchenette to change.
When he returned it was like witnessing a conjuring trick in which a stage magician sends a volunteer into a box and a different one comes out. The gauche ineptitude had gone, as if the outfit contained a built-in swagger the way corsets contain built-in stiffening.
‘I wouldn’t know you, Meici. I wouldn’t have recognised you.’
His eyes sparkled as tears of joy welled up. He sat back at the table and continued to drink the cough mixture. He forgot to ask me again about being his best man; perhaps he thought the deal had now been clinched. His words slowed and he began to babble.
‘Mum’s really my aunt. My real mum died and left me, and her two sisters had to decide which one would take care of me. They played Pooh Sticks for me. Mum lost. Auntie Meinir left and went to Liverpool. She’s got a fur coat and a chequebook and stuff. At Christmas we used to play Hansel and Gretel in the wood, but sometimes, it was funny, I would leave the trail of breadcrumbs and follow them but they led in the wrong direction. Once they went down the disused lead mine. Mum said the birds must have moved them. The woman from the social services asked me last week if I had any relations and I told her Auntie Pebim was sort of like an aunt and she told me to make regular visits to her. So I went round and she wouldn’t let me past the garden gate. She said, “What do you want?” and I said I’d come to visit her, and she said “A likely story.” ’ He took another drink from the bottle.
